


Fly Octo, Fly

by glitchedfoxx



Category: Splatoon
Genre: Gen, Octo Expansion DLC, Octo Expansion DLC Spoilers, Squidbeak Splatoon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18243635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitchedfoxx/pseuds/glitchedfoxx
Summary: "You’d think being named after a Greek god, the son of Poseidon even, that you’d be destined for great things. This is what my parents always raised me to believe, but recently I’ve been having a hard time believing I’m even remotely special."16-year-old octoling boy, Halirrhothius, finds his grueling life as a soldier in the Octarian army flipped completely upside down when he meets a few very... unique characters.





	1. Welcome to Squidbeak

**Author's Note:**

> All of the characters in this story are my own original Splatoon characters, so they might not align with your own personal interpretations of the Splatoon agents. Also, disclaimer, this doesn't exactly follow the story-line of hero mode or the octo expansion but it does include a few elements from both. Other than that, I hope you enjoy reading?

You’d think being named after a Greek god, the son of Poseidon even, that you’d be destined for great things. This is what my parents always raised me to believe, but recently I’ve been having a hard time believing I’m even remotely special. I haven’t thought myself any higher than a mangy street mutt since the war that banished my people to the underground, and consequently ripped my parents away from me as well.

Quite sad, isn’t it, that I’m soon to meet the same fate as them? Everyone above the age of 16 is to be drafted into the military and sent off into battle against the surface dwellers, fighting for territory. This is where my parents went, and now I’d be damned if I knew where they were. I don’t even know if they’re alive.

“Soldier 25008, please step forward,” a booming voice called across the bunker. Metal clanked loudly against metal as I took three steps forward, offsetting myself from the uniform line that my inmates formed. I saluted towards the lieutenant in the center of the room, avoiding eye contact.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’ve been slacking, cadet,” the lieutenant stated, her brow raising at me accusingly. “Bold of you to have the nerve.”

“I apologize, sir.”

“You will be joining the troops in Tentakeel Outpost, you may return to inner sectors when you’ve proven yourself worthy. Is this understood, cadet?”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

The woman turned away, and I was allowed to return to my spot in the line. Later that day, I was put on the next train to Tentakeel Outpost, set to arrive there by sundown. My head hung between my arms, palms clasped against the nape of my neck and pushing pale yellow,s shoulder length tentacles into my face. The droning sound of moans and yelling muffled by the metal walls of the train cars drowned out any thoughts that tried to surface in my head. In the next car over resided prisoners of war, destined to serve for the very race they’ve been fighting their whole life.

Many still had a fighting will: yelling and screaming to be let free, damning our very existence, swearing that we will pay for what we’re doing. It made me sick listening to the shrieks, a nauseating feeling of guilt contracting around my stomach. Some stayed silent, all will to live brutally beaten out of them. Now they’re left mindless fighting machines, battling their own people until they succumb to the violence of war. This made me sicker.

“Rookie, huh?” a voice inquired from across the aisle. I lifted my head to meet a pair of solemn grey eyes. “I r’member when the screaming got ta’ me, too.”  
I frowned at the woman. She could see the questions in my look--she sat up and lifted a hand to the side of her face.

“I’ve been here a long time, passing back and forth between sectors. I used ta’ be in HQ ‘one point. Ev’ry trip, I’d sit listen’n’ to the screaming. Ya’ see,” she pushed back a thick ginger lock and tucked it behind her ear, the end, of which, jutted out in a point, something that my own ears did not reflect. “I’m one’a them.”

“I-I…” I stuttered a bit, unsure of what to say. After stumbling over my own tongue for a few seconds, I gave up and shut my mouth again. The woman let out an amused chuckle.  
“What’s ya’ name, kid?”

“Uh… Halirrhothius… but, you can just call me Hali, if you want.”

“Hali, huh? That’s a unique name, your parents must’a thought highly of you. Ya’ can call me Onda.”  
Onda stood up and moved across the aisle to sit in the empty seat beside me. She leaned in close, and the smell of mud and sweat filled my nostrils. She had clearly been out in the field and away from a base for a long time.

“I’m gon’ let ya’ in on somethin’, kid. I’m bustin’ outta here.”

“Y-You’re what?” I sputtered, and was quickly hushed. I gave Onda a look of concern. “Why are you telling me this, how can you be so sure I won’t report you to the authorities?”

“Oh, please,” Onda let out a laugh. “I’ve seen your records, kid. E’ryone knows about ya’, ‘bout how you don’t listen.”

“Everyone knows about that?”

“Ya’, you’ve got mad props amongst us rebels. So, do ya’ wanna help me bust outta here?”

I took a moment to ponder the thought, weighing the possibilities in either hand. Onda’s eyes bored into my skull as she waited in anticipation for my answer. The yelling from the prisoners seemingly growing louder and louder in my ears the longer I sat there without an answer.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” I finally replied, and some life seemed to spark in Onda’s dull eyes.

“Okay, here’s the plan-- how good is your balance?”

“My balance?” I echoed.

“Ya’, you good on ya’ feet?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Great, we gon’ jump out this train.”

Before I had the chance to protest, Onda was pulling me to my feet. She left me no time to grab my gun from the seat beside me before she was tugging me down the aisle. It all happened so quickly that it seemed like a blur. She lead me down to the car door that connected us to the rest of the war prisoners. In one fell swoop, she pulled the door open and jumped out, doing a barrel roll as she hit the ground-- in seconds, she was out of sight. All reason within me had fled in the moment that I jumped after her. The impact was the most excruciating pain I’ve felt in my entire life. It felt like my bones had shattered as my legs were ripped out from beneath me with the momentum. I must have blacked out for a moment, because next thing I knew, I was lying face up on the ground, and the train was long gone.

“Hey, kid, ya’ good?” Onda’s voice rang in my ears almost too loud amongst the unsettling silence of the open air. She grabbed ahold of my hand and helped to pull me into a sitting position. I felt a sharp pain run up my back as I moved, causing me to let out a soft yelp.

“Hit the ground hard, di’n’t ya’?” Onda remarked with a chuckle. “Should have warned ya’ to shift your weight to one side.”  
The woman helped me to my feet, my legs screaming at me to stop as I put weight on them. There was a visible trail in the dirt where I slid as I landed, I must have moved a good ten feet before I came to a stop. I checked myself for any injury, which thankfully, there was nothing broken. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Onda brush some dirt off herself before turning to me. She gave me a bright, crooked-toothed smile when I turned back to face her.

“A’ight, Hali man, we gotta find somewhere to stay an’ sort oursel’s out before we make a break for the surface.”

“You got a plan?” I asked, this whole situation I’ve managed to get myself into seeming so bizarre. Onda nodded, and pointed a mud-tanned hand towards a valley shrouded in hills void of any vegetation.

“We’re headed tha’ way.”

“Looks sketchy,” I remarked.

“Precisely!” Onda exclaimed, her tone filled with a concerning amount of excitement. “Get ya’ land legs, kiddo, we’re in for quite the walk.”  
With each step it felt like my legs were going to fall off, but still I pushed on. Onda gave me the motivation to keep going. I’d been kept underground my whole life, I had no clue what the sky even looked like. Onda told me what the surface was like. She told me about the sun, about clouds, she told me stories of the city. She told me about the festivals they have, large, extravagant celebrations with bright colors that light up the city like a beacon at night and music that filled the streets and could be heard from miles away. Everyone would come out to partake in festivities together, they would have friendly competitions, and there would be prizes, you would get a small prize even if you just participated, you didn’t even have to win! Of course, there would be bigger prizes for winning, though. The surface fascinated me, and now I wanted nothing more than to make it to the surface.

“There it is, kid. We’re almost there,” Onda announced with a finger pointed towards what appeared to be a run down hut. The building looked like it hadn’t been touched by anything more than the sparse wildlife in decades. The roof looked like it would cave in if you so much as laid a finger on it, the structure was clearly being held up by threads.

“Is it safe to even go inside there? The structural integrity of the entire building could be compromised. There could be all sorts of complications, the walls could cave in at any moment.”

“Structa’ intregal-what now could be who-not?” Onda asked, tripping over her own tongue as she sputtered out pretty much complete nonsense.

“The structural integrity could be compromised.”

The woman gave me a dirty look, confusion written all over her expression. The thought that she wasn’t completely fluent in my language hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment. A burning sensation built up in my cheeks as I looked down and uttered an apology.

“The house could fall apart,” I reworded in simpler terms, which seemed to help Onda understand. She let out a soft pfft noise and waved for me to follow her.

“It’s fine, kid, trust me.”

Scepticism still riddled my expression as I eyed her bounding right up to the rotting structure with confidence. Onda turned back to me and frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. “You can stay over there if you’re really tha’ scared, but ya’ll ne’r make it to the surface jus’ standing there.”

“Okay, alright, okay, I’m coming!”

I shuffled my way over to her, a smile growing on her lips as I did. She pushed the door to the building open once I was by her side again. Inside there was mounds of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. The walls stank of mildew and water damage, and the roof was perforated in various places, letting in streams of light from outside. The whole place gave me the heebie jeebies. Whereas I was hesitant, Onda barrelled right in. She went to the center of the room, and stomped on a single wood panel of the floor in a rhythmic pattern. I opened my mouth to protest before she caused the floor to cave in, but before I could get any words out, the floorboards beneath Onda lifted, and a head poked out from beneath the floorboards.  
Electric blue tentacles pulled back into a tight, high ponytail framed a chiseled and scarred face of a boy who seemed around the same age as Onda. His ears also adorned the same pointed ends that Onda’s did. He spoke to Onda, but I couldn’t discern a single word he said, nor the words that Onda spoke back to him. She climbed under the floorboards with the boy, then his head turned to look at me.

“Come in,” he said in a thick accent-- so thick that, for a moment, I couldn’t even understand what he had said. I approached the hole in the floorboards, and when I peered inside I was surprised to see it drop down into a tunnel lined meticulously with metal panels to keep its structure. The boy was perched on a ladder feet above the floor of the tunnel. He climbed down, then looked back up at me with emerald green eyes that still seemed to hold hints of innocent hope despite the clear marks that war has left on him. I mounted the ladder and climbed down after him.

He lead me down the tunnel that stretched on father than I could see, a tense silence falling over the two of us with the language barrier between us. Every once and awhile he would turn around and glance back at me and there’d be hints of anxiousness in his expression, it seemed that he wanted to say something to me, but he just couldn’t find the words.

“Me Luca,” he finally said, supposedly figuring out how to express his thoughts the best he could with his knowledge. I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Luca?” I echoed. His eyes lit up with excitement like a young child, and he nodded quickly with joy. “Your name is Luca?” I asked. The boy paused, pursing his lips in thought, then nodded.

“Me name Luca,” he repeated, incorporating the new word into his sentence now. I let out a soft laugh at his childlike behavior. Part of me thought that perhaps reverting to a childlike mental state was his method of coping with whatever hardships that he might have, but I pushed that thought to the back of my brain to just purely enjoy the brightness that radiated from him without interference. He lead me to a door at the end of the tunnel, and knocked at it in the same rhythmic pattern that Onda had stomped on the floor with previously. After he had tapped out the pattern with his knuckle, he looked down at his feet, shifting his weight from side to side. The door opened moments later, and he lead me inside the room on the other side.

“There ya’ are,” Onda’s voice rang out from the other side of the room. She approached us and leaned up to Luca’s ear, muttered something incoherent to him. He gave her a nod, then she briefly hugged him before turning to me. The crooked-toothed smile she gave me on the train had returned.

“Hali, I’m proud to announce you as an official member of tha’ Squidbeak Rebellion.”

“How does the Octarian army not know anything about this?” Those were the first words that fell from my lips, the question forcing its way out before I had the chance to stop it. Onda's face seemed to go a little pale, it was clear she didn't have an answer. She looked towards Luca, who seemed like he didn't even have a clue what I had just asked-- understandable, though.

“We take special precautionary measures to make sure that no traces are left behind, and only let in those we can be absolutely certain won't turn us in,” another voice, unfamiliar and raspy, interjected from the other side of the room. My eyes trailed in the direction of the voice, and eventually landed on another boy. He had turned around in his chair, which previously had been facing a wall of monitors, each screen displaying a video feed that was unique in their own respect. It took me by surprise to see that this boy, too, had the pointed ears that Onda and Luca both bore, because I could have sworn he would have been an Octarian by how fluently he spoke the language.

“You seem to be in shock,” the boy remarked, a cheeky smirk playing at his lips as he stood up. “Surprised I can speak Octarian? I'm the one who taught Onda, you know.”

“This is true, he did,” Onda confirmed. “He’s tryna teach Luca, too, bu’ Luca is slow at learnin’.”

“‘Ey!” Luca exclaimed, scrunching up his face into a scowl. Though he couldn’t formulate his own sentences very well, clearly he could understand some things. Onda and the other boy laughed, the latter giving Luca an affectionate pat on his shoulder. Now that the stranger was closer, it became apparent how short he was, the top of his lilac-locked head only reaching Luca’s shoulder. He turned his attention back to me, and held out a hand.

“Hali, right? I’m Skeeter,” he introduced himself. I nodded and hesitantly shook his hand. Under the assumption that he, too, was an escaped prisoner, he had an oddly delicate feeling to his hands, with lanky fingers that you’d expect from that of a pianist. When he slipped his hand back into the pocket of his forest green jacket, his eyes flickered up and down, it appeared that he was eyeing me, it held the same nature as a predator deciding if something was suitable prey. This gave me an uneasy feeling.

“Did Onda tell you anything about Squidbeak on your way here?” he asked, I shook my head. Skeeter’s lips pulled into a frown, then he waved for me to follow him back over to the wall of monitors. He sat back down in the chair, and when he did I could now see the monitor that sat on the desk separate from the rest, and rather than video feed, the display was littered with open documents, all the script distinctly in Inklish-- leaving me unable to decipher a single word on the screen. Skeeter clicked on a few things, minimizing a select few documents, then he opened the file explorer and opened up more documents. His hands moved so quickly and with such great precision that it hurt my head to try and wrap around it how he was able to do it. 

“The Squidbeak Rebellion is pretty much what it sounds like, it’s an organized group of rebels that work together in a military like fashion to fight against the Octarian government. It’s a subdivision of a bigger organization known as the Squidbeak Splatoon, and we’ve been running for about 67 years, the founder was a veteran of the Great Turf War 100 years ago. You know about the Great Turf War, right? Do they teach you guys about that in Octarian schools?”

“Vaguely,” I answered. “Most schools only teach you how to build and operate machinery, it’s pretty much known from a very young age that everyone is to be enlisted into the military par for the handicapped, and those with children younger than 5 years old.”

“Great,” Skeeter answered with malice in his tone. I could tell he had some sort of grudge against Octarians, which didn’t help the uneasy feeling that he gave me when I was near. “Right, so since you guys were banished underground, they’ve been pushing the limited borders of Inkopolis and capturing our soldiers to use against us. On top of that, they’ve also been stealing our zapfish. The goal of the Splatoon is to put an end to the corrupt ways of the Octarian government and take back our people.”

“It’s that bad?” I questioned.

“Oh, absolutely. Now that you know the whole story, here’s what we need from you. See, you’re the first ever Octarian to be a member of Squidbeak. We need someone to be working from the inside. You probably understand already why none of us can do it,” Skeeter explained, then gestured to his ears. A sinking feeling filled my stomach, and I had to prop myself up on Skeeter’s desk to stop myself from falling over from a sudden dizziness that came over me. Skeeter seemed to not notice.

“Our first mission for you is to sabotage Tentakeel outpost, where you were initially headed, yes?” Skeeter continued, words leaving his mouth at a mile a minute. “We’re going to gradually work our way in until we eventually reach Octavio himself. You haven’t sworn yourself fully to Octavio, have you? Because you’re going to have to rebel against the very man that leads you.”

“Skeet, for the love a’ god, slow down,” Onda called out, cutting the boy off before he could continue his ramble. “The poor boy looks like he’s half a sec’ from passin’ out.”  
All eyes in the room were on me then, and I had just enough time to focus my gaze on Onda’s concerned expression before my vision went blurry and the stomach-wrenching anxiety that filled my entire being finally squeezed hard enough on my insides to cause the contents to spill out-- right onto the floor by Skeeter’s feet.

“Fuckin’ Octo!” Skeeter cursed as he pulled his feet onto his chair and assumed a squatting position on the seat. “Pull yourself together, what’s gotten into you?”

“‘Ey! Have some compassion, you little-- Hali, are you alright?” Onda interjected, flicking Skeeter on the back of his head before kneeling down beside me. I clutched my stomach with one arm while covering my mouth with the other. I looked up to the woman knelt over me, vision blurred by tears that stung at the corners of my eyes and shook my head. She lifted her head and turned to look at Luca. She barked out a command at him in Inklish, speaking so quickly that I couldn’t even distinguish when one word ended and the next started. Luca nodded and left the room, leaving through a door that I hadn’t noticed until the moment Luca opened it.

When Luca came back, he was carrying a blanket. He wrapped it around my shoulders, and helped me to my feet. He let me lean against his shoulder to keep my balance, despite the fact that his frail body clearly had a little trouble supporting the added weight. We passed through the same door Luca left through earlier, and he lead me down a hall to a room with a good 6 or 7 beds-- I was too dizzy to tell which beds were real and which beds were just figmented from my blurry vision. He laid me down on a bed and pat my forehead in a somewhat awkward fashion, but good intention was still eminent in his actions.

“Be good,” he stated confidently. “I get Onda.”

He then turned to leave the room. I couldn’t exactly tell if what he meant was to feel better or to not get into trouble, but I assumed it was the former. I sighed and leaned my head back against the pillow, which was quite stiff and clearly old and worn. I closed my eyes, and must have drifted off for a moment. I didn’t recall falling asleep, but I did recall jumping into consciousness when I felt a gentle nudge against my arm.

“It’s not tha’ best, but it’s all we got,” Onda explained with an apologetic tone as she handed me a glass of water and a couple crackers. I sat up and took them from her with a half-hearted smile of gratitude. She returned the smile and sat down on the edge of the bed next to me.

“Ya’ aren’t sick, are ya’? ‘Cos we really need ya’ out in the field but we can’ be havin’ ya’ passing out mid-battle.”

“I’m fine,” I assured, my voice coming out raspy at first before finding its bearings. “Just… a little overwhelmed.”

“Ah,” Onda hummed with a nod. She then pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head a little, apparently having some sort of inner turmoil. “‘M sorry ‘bout Skeeter, he’s… not exactly tha’ most sympathetic of people, ‘specially towards Octos.”

“He doesn’t like me, does he?” I asked, slipping a cracker between my teeth.

“I wouldn’t start assumin’ that, kid, he jus’ needs some time ta’ warm up ta’ ya’.”

I nodded in understanding. Onda gave me some time to finish my water and crackers before taking the glass from me and leaving the room with instructions to come back out when I’m feeling well enough. 

“You ready to listen now?” Skeeter asked when I rejoined the group in the main room.

“Be nice,” Onda hissed. Skeeter sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked through gritted teeth. I nodded and hesitantly shuffled over to his desk. When I was around two to three feet away from him he held out his arm. “That’s good right there, don’t come any closer.”

He let out a deep sigh and turned back to his computer, muttering a soft ‘let’s get started’ before he opened up a map that looked unmistakably like Octo Canyon with multicolored doodles and diagrams digitally scribbled all over it. He looked towards me, and nodded for me to pay attention, before pointing to various parts of the map and explaining in full detail what the goal was. Next thing I knew, I was back on the Deepsea Metro with Luca and Onda by my side.


	2. Tentakeel Outpost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Go time."  
> "Copy that, Agent Octonary."

I was fully clad in my usual military uniform, forged strips of seaweed adorning the sides of my head to make myself appear a higher rank that I actually was, Luca and Onda bore worn out and tattered clothing however, no distinguishable status displayed anywhere on their attire. They were posing as prisoners. When we arrived at Tentakeel Outpost, we snuck in over the gate rather than entering through the main entrance.

Luca and Onda split off from me, leaving me to perform my task alone. A nauseating feeling filled my stomach once they were out of sight, nervousness wracking through my entire body. I slipped past security, my main goal to get into the surveillance barracks without being registered to the post, because once I’m documented, there’s no getting out without being tracked down.

“ _ All going according to plan? _ ” Skeeter’s voice rang in my left ear, the earpiece crackling as it kicked on. I pressed my finger to my ear and opened my mouth to speak.

“Rodger,” I spoke lowly, just barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up my voice.

“ _ Yessir, _ ” Onda’s voice came through the earpiece, then shortly afterwards Luca made his confirmation as well. Eventually, I reached the field, where there were lines of soldiers pacing back and forth, constantly looking back and forth, watching for any intruders. I approached one of the soldiers on the outer edges of the outpost, sneaking out behind him when no one else was watching.

“Excuse me, mister,” I said softly, uplifting my voice to come across as childlike and innocent. He turned around to face me, but before he could get a word out, I was already swinging my fist right into his face. When he was out cold, I dragged his unconscious body into a ditch-- muttering  _ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry _ to myself the entire way. I took his gun off of him, then returned to where he was patrolling, taking his place as if I was there the entire time. When I was in position, I pressed my fingers to my earpiece.

“Go time,” I muttered.

“ _ Copy that _ ,  _ Agent Octonary, _ ” Skeeter responded, then voiced out commands for Luca and Onda to start. There was an unsettling silence between the time that Skeeter gave the go and the first distinct, ear-piercing bangs of guns being fired. Within seconds there was shouts amongst the soldiers in the area, barking commands, yelling to get the intruders. I ran in towards the gunshots just like I was actually fighting. I spotted Onda first, and for a brief moment I was taken aback by her swift moments. She seemed to be seeing everything in slow motion, leaving her with enough time to avoid the weapons of the troops attacking her, but in real time she moved as quick as the ink being shot at her.

Luca came into view shortly after Onda, his electric blue hair standing out amongst the red and brown hues of the Octarian soldiers. Though not as graceful, he still moved just as fast as Onda did to avoid his oncoming attackers. After I spotted Luca, he soon spotted me as well, and there was no mistaking the smirk that pulled at the corners of his lips before he put a soldier in a headlock and knocked her out with one swift moment of his leg. He jumped over the unconscious body and made a break for it, trailing a line of soldiers behind him.

I chased after him as well, pushing my way to the front of the pack. He glanced back at me, and slowed down a little, giving me just enough leeway to tackle him. We both went rolling across the ground, kicking up dirt into the air at the same time. I pinned him to the ground with his arms behind his back, but kept my grip light to avoid hurting him.

“Get the girl!” I shouted at the troops who had been pursuing Luca. Without hesitating, they turned back to hunt down Onda.

“You okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” I muttered to Luca as I stood up and brought him to his feet as well, still holding his arms behind his back. Luca shook his head and gave me a smile.

“I tough,” he announced, eliciting a soft chuckle from myself. I looked back at the commotion that engulfed the outskirts of the outpost, Onda still evading all of the soldiers that were on her tail. I took a pair of handcuffs off of my belt and clamped them around Luca’s wrists, leaving barely enough space for his hands to slip free whenever needed. When I looked back at the crowd, however, there were significantly less soldiers in sight, and Onda was nowhere to be seen.

“Uh oh,” I whispered. “That’s not good.”

I looked to Luca, and he looked, back his expression mirroring the same concern that mine did. I pressed the button on my earpiece, knowing no other way to handle the situation.

“Alpha, call back up.”

“ _ On it. What happened out there? _ ”

“They took Agent Serpent.”

“ _ Finish your mission, I’ll get help. _ ”

I looked to Luca, and he nodded at me. I started taking him to the outpost command, then. He started squirming in my grip, putting on a show of struggling. He growled and snarled. We caught the attention of guards, their eyes watching us closely. Luca squirmed more.

“Let me go,” he commanded in perfect Octarian, which caught me off guard. He started digging his feet into the ground, forcing me to actually drag him to keep moving. He thrashed more in my grip, twisting and turning like a dog tugging on a rope.

“Let me go, you dirty, low life bottomfeeder!” he continued yelling, his tone sounding so convincing that a small part of me worried that he might have been serious. The way he seemed so desperate to get away hurt my heart. The peering eyes eventually averted their gazes as we got closer to the command building. Right before we went through the door, Luca belted out one more protest for good measure.

“Y’all are revolting to imprison our people like this! You’ll get what’s coming!”

I put my hand over Luca’s mouth to shut him up before something came out that he’d end up regretting before pushing him through the door. When we were inside, I uncovered his mouth. He looked at me with sad eyes, an apologetic expression took over his face.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. I lead him down the hall to the head officer of Tentakeel, holding him at the wrists and keeping him in front of me. His head hung, refusing any eye contact with the officers scattered about the building. We reached a door with a man standing in front of it. He took one look at us, then stepped aside and opened the door for us. I nodded at him as I entered the next room. On the other side of the doorway sat a big desk, a woman of high power sat right behind it flanked by two standing soldiers. The woman sat up when she saw Luca, a sadistic grin pulling at the corners of her lips.

“Another one just a little too slow to get past us,” she commented, placing her elbows on the desk and lacing her fingers together. Luca growled at her, lunging towards her a little, but I pulled him back. The woman chuckled.

“Caught this one making a run for it. What should I do with him, chief?” I asked, adopting a professional tone of voice. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Luca wriggling his hands through the handcuffs, taking them off entirely and holding onto them behind his back to appear like he was still cuffed. The woman leaned back, snapped her fingers and gestured for her two pawns to come take ahold of Luca.

“We can take it from here, good work, cadet.”

Just as the soldiers were about to grab Luca’s shoulders, I let him loose. In lightning speed, he dropped the handcuffs to the floor and kicked his body up onto one leg, elbowing one soldier in the stomach and slamming his foot into the chest of the other simultaneously. I had my gun aimed at the commander the moment I heard the metal collide with the floor. I fired one warning shot at her, hitting her in the shoulder and knocking her down. In one swift motion, I tossed my gun to Luca and dove for the desk.

The droning sounds of several pairs of boots running towards the room gave me a sense of urgency as I pulled an ink mine out from a pouch at my hip and connected it to the front of the desk. As I set up the explosive, Luca was caught up fighting off the soldiers. Once the mine was ready, I stood up and ran for the door, pulling Luca with me.

“Let’s go,” I urged. Luca ran out in front of me, shooting down anyone who tried to get in our way as I tacked down mine after mine along the halls of the building, making sure that they’re positioned close enough to cause the blast radius of the previous ones to detonate the rest. The moment we left the building, it felt like we had slipped into another plain of existence. The mines went off like a line of dominos falling down, starting from the middle and radiating outwards, until the entire building was engulfed in chaos. There were Octarian troops running in all directions, some going towards the wreckage, others scattering to escape the debris. Amongst the commotion, we were able to slip away through the borders of the outpost into uninhabited wasteland.

Luca collapsed as soon as we were in the clear, his legs giving out underneath him. Nothing but the too-loud sounds of our heavy breaths filled the air. I plopped down on the ground next to him, lungs burning with each inhale and feet sore beyond belief. No words fell between us until my earpiece crackled in my ear.

“ _ Mission complete, the entire base was decimated. Good job, Agents, _ ” Skeeter announced, pride in his tone. “ _ I’m working to find your coordinates so that I can send a team out to pick you up. _ ”

“Copy that,” I practically gasped into my ear piece. Skeeter’s end fell silent, and we were left digging our toes into the dirt for about half an hour before a jeep drove up to us. We struggled to stand when we heard the vehicle approaching, but once we were on our feet, we were quick to get in and start on our way to HQ. The drive was very quiet, none of us having anything to say. When we entered HQ, we were met by Skeeter’s expectant gaze.

“You two look rough,” he commented. “You guys can go take a shower and rest in a bit, we need to talk first.”

Luca and I gave each other questioning glances, before we each took a seat. Skeeter rolled his chair over to the lounge chairs and folded his hands together, resting his chin on top of them. The slouch in his posture made him look stressed, and at this angle I could clearly see dark, purple-tinted circles forming around his eyes on his otherwise tawny completion. It became apparent in this moment that all the stress of fighting a war he didn't ask for all this time has built up inside him, and something finally happened to tip him over the edge.

“We need to organize a search and rescue mission,” he started after an awkward pause of silence. “Backup never came, at the moment Onda is MIA.”

“Backup never came?” I echoed.

“Yeah. It was too risky to travel without revealing the location of our bases. With you running away, the Octarian army has been putting out search parties to find out where you went, areas around Tentakeel have been heavily populated with troops.”

“So in a sense... it's my fault backup couldn't come?”

“Don't blame yourself, that's just how life is sometimes,” Skeeter assured. Hearing something so kind coming from him seemed otherworldly, but I was willing to accept this new side to him. He rolled back over to his desk and coaxed Luca and I to come over as well. He talked us through how we’re going to track where Onda is going to be before issuing any plans for going out into the field. From this point on it was the waiting game.


	3. Green Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Call it uh… mission Wing It and Try Not To Die.”  
> “Are you crazy? You’re going to run in head on without a plan?”  
> “Hali, listen, Onda is out there, somewhere, and I will stop at nothing to get her back. Not when we’re this close.”

For the next week my time was spent traveling back and forth throughout all of Octo Canyon on the Deepsea Metro with Luca. It proved to be quite enjoyable despite the less than desirable conditions. Sometimes we'd spend the night on the train, and I ended up growing closer to him as a byproduct. He’d spend all day making me laugh and listening to my rambles about machinery even though he clearly had no idea what I was saying, and we'd fall asleep on each other's shoulders in the back of the train car late at night on our trips back to HQ after an exhausting raid. He learned to speak Octarian more clearly over this time, too. We had nothing else to do between missions other than to teach each other our native languages, and he picked up new words and phrases rather quickly. As we took down base after base and looted the documents inside, Skeeter was hard at work at HQ trying to crack the code to hack into the Octarian army database and track the moments of prisoners. Eventually, the day finally came when he made a breakthrough.

“Guys, I've got it!” Skeeter practically yelled as he burst into the sleeping quarters in a haste, catching Luca and I halfway through suiting up for our next mission later that day. Luca yelped and clutched his shirt to his half-clothed torso, his head not even pulled through the neck hole yet.

“Could it hurt to knock?” he hissed at the other boy in Inklish.

“Sorry, I'm just-- I found a way to track down where Onda is.”

“You finally got through the firewall?” I asked, eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Yeah! Do you wanna come see? I can show you what I found.”

Skeeter lead me down the hall to the main room and took me over to his desk, where, as usual, he had various documents and programs opened and cluttered across his monitor screen. What set these apart from the rest, however, is that the script was all distinctly Octarian. Skeeter clicked on the corner of a page, and that brought it to the front, displaying a large map.

“I've yet to find the key to this map but just from looking at it, I believe these red shapes mark bases, these yellow ones mark command centers, and these blue ones indicate prison camps,” Skeeter explained, gesturing to various parts on the map as he spoke. “The only thing that's confusing me are these green locations.”

I hummed in thought and eyed the map, staring at the little green geometric shapes on the screen until my eyes hurt and I had to look away.

“I'd be damned if I knew what those were either, haven't been to any of those locations in my life.”

“Here's the issue with these green spots though,” Skeeter started. He pulled up a different document, this one consisting only of text, various columns with names, date and times, then longitude and latitude coordinates. Skeeter highlighted a row in the table. “See here? This table is tracking prisoners and where they're located, this one is Onda. She was set to have moved to one of the green locations two days ago, so she must be there now.”

“What's the plan, chief?”

“Cancel today's mission, we're heading straight to this location as soon as possible.” Skeeter paused for a moment when I gave him a questioning look, the rationality in his decision concerningly absent. “Call it uh… mission Wing It and Try Not To Die.”

“Are you crazy? You’re going to run in head on without a plan?”

“Hali, listen,” Skeeter demanded firmly, hitting his fist against the desk to put emphasis on how serious he was. “Onda is out there,  _ somewhere _ , and I will stop at  _ nothing _ to get her back. Not when we’re this close.”

I stared at Skeeter in awe for a moment. There was passion in his eyes, a passion I could only hope to have, a passion that was mixed with a little bit of sadness. He looked on the brink of tears, a glossy sheen washing over his fuchsia-tinted eyes. I sighed, and nodded.

“Alright, let’s do this.”

Game on.

Skeeter landed us the next train nearest to our new destination, and this time instead of sending me and Luca off at the station platform, he’d gone to the artillery unit of HQ and came back out clad in the Squidbeak uniform, a charger held at his hip. He was coming with us, leaving us completely blind from a bird's eye view. He sat with determination in his eyes and posture, nothing was going to get in his way; Luca and I, however, were playful as ever with each other during the train ride. 

When we reached our stop, all fun and games were gone. Skeeter lead us out away from the train station into an open field that seemed void of any type of military life-- or any life for that matter. My stomach was doing twists and turns once we reached a building that was teeming with bad vibes, every fiber in my being telling me that this was most definitely a bad idea. Skeeter pushed onwards, though, and so did we.

The building was dark and seemed to be unoccupied once we entered. The silence was eerie, and it gave me a very unsettling feeling. Luca pushed to the front of the group, holding his gun out, ready to shoot at anything at a moment’s notice. We probably passed through at least three to four uninhabited rooms before something in me snapped.

“There’s nothing here,” I hissed quietly, the noise reverberating off of the hollow metal walls. 

“I’m positive that there’s prisoners here, we just gotta keep looking,” Skeeter insisted. Luca wandered off to another part of the room while Skeeter and I bickered.

“Guys, come over here,” he called. We looked to him, and he pointed to a table that he stood by. Skeeter was the first to walk over to the table, and I trailed behind him. The table was covered in all sorts of medical supplies-- pill bottles, scalpels, medical tape, forceps, etc -- but the most peculiar thing was a syringe. Now if it was any other syringe, it wouldn’t be important, but this one contained an odd greenish substance that seemed to be glowing in the darkness of the room. Everything about it seemed to give off warnings that it wasn’t a substance that should be inside a syringe.

“That’s concerning,” Skeeter commented bluntly. I picked up the syringe and squeezed out a bit of the strange liquid onto the table-- not the brightest idea I’ve ever had. The substance was thick, resembling ink, and it appeared to glow brighter when it was outside of the syringe.

“Very concerning,” I added.

“Should we investigate?” Luca asked.

“Probably, but stay on high alert.”

We continued moving, leaving the strange syringe and its contents on the table. All three of us seemed to be jumpy as we moved along through what appeared to be a hospital, the creepy aura of the building clearly getting underneath our skin. Eventually, we were faced with a large iron door, a glowing keypad on the wall next to it. I looked to Skeeter, who looked back with a knowing expression in his eyes.

“Luca stand guard, we’re going to hack the lock on the door.”

Luca nodded and turned his back to us to keep watch. Skeeter knelt down next to the keypad while I stayed standing. He examined it from all angles, then eventually took out a pocket knife from his pocket and jammed it into the seam of the device, prying it open with the blade as a lever. Once the cover was off the keypad, I took to messing with the wiring inside. It took some finagling, but the door soon unlocked.

“Luca, let’s go,” I whispered, then went to push the door open. Once we were inside, we were met by another dark room. I couldn’t even see the wall on the other end of the corridor, but I could vaguely make out the silhouettes of cylindrical objects that reached to the high ceiling of the room. Just as I was about to take another step further into the room, lights kicked on. I squinted as row by row the cylinders lit up in the same greenish hue as the strange liquid we found earlier.

“What the everloving--” Skeeter let out a gasp. It was the kind of gasp you let out when you see something you know you shouldn’t have seen, something that will stick with you for the rest of your life, a sight you’ll never be able to get out of your head no matter how hard you try. When my eyes adjusted to the light, I almost screamed. The cylindrical objects were large capsules, and inside each one were prisoners-- no, inkings,  _ people _ , every single one of them unconcious, most with an odd green tint to their paled and dehydrated skin, and all of them sharing the same greenish color in their tentacles. It was a horrific sight to see. Skeeter broke into a run, straight down the long hall.

“Skeeter, wait--!” I called, reaching out to stop him, but he had already made his way down the rows of capsules. Luca and I ran in after him, but stopped in our tracks when he had come to a sudden halt. Skeeter had his gaze fixed on one of the capsules-- and inside was Onda, almost unrecognizable. He approached it slowly, reaching out with striking resemblance to a child reaching for their mother’s hand. He placed his palm on the glass of the container first, then his entire forearm, then lastly he slammed his forehead against the glass and let out a heavy sob. I took a step closer to him, but then he slammed his fist against the capsule, causing the glass to crack under the pressure. He still didn’t lift his head though, that is, until the lights in the room turned red, and a blaring alarm started going off.

“Let’s get out of here,” Luca urged. He started on his way out of the room, and I followed for a moment, until it became apparent that Skeeter wasn’t moving. I stopped and looked back at him staring blankly at the capsule that he had damaged. There clearly wasn’t so much as a thought flashing across his eyes as he used the barrel of his sniper to smash the glass entirely, then ripped Onda’s unconscious body out through the hole he had created. I let out a heavy sigh and ran back to help him carry her out with us.

“They’re doing experiments on them, o-on-- on us, they’re using us as pawns for their sick, twisted schemes,” Skeeter spat out in a rush, tripping over his own tongue. “I’m almost positive they put something in her, they probably injected her with that weird ink! We need to find an antiserum, I-I,  _ I need to find an antiserum _ .”

Skeeter ran off without warning, leaving me to carry Onda alone. Frustrated, I hoisted her over my shoulder and kept running to catch up with Luca. I found him trapped, trying to pry open the entrance to the building. I stopped in my tracks.

“The alarms must have activated an automatic lock,” I hypothesized. I set Onda down and joined Luca at the door. “We need to find a way to bust open the lock.”

“Hurry,” Luca urged. “Where’s Skeeter?”

“He ran away, going off about some sort of antiserum.”

“We can’t just leave him here.”

“I know! We’ve got to focus on one problem at a time, though.”

Luca sighed and bounced anxiously as I fiddled with the lock on the door. I was about to turn around and search for a tool to bust the lock open with when Luca let out a startled gasp, and before I could ask what was wrong, my question was answered with fist meeting my left cheek.

“Holy shit,” Luca exclaimed, and rushed to pick up his gun. I looked up and saw Onda, fully conscious, looming over me. I wanted to ask her how she was feeling, but looking into her eyes I knew something was wrong. The usual dull grey in her irises were replaced with a fluorescent green. I tried sitting up, but Onda pushed me back down.

“Onda, what are you doing?” I cried. No response. I tried to push her off, but she was too strong. I started kicking and struggling to try to shake her off, but to no avail. She didn’t let up until Luca smacked her in the side of the head with the butt of his gun.

“She’s gone mad!” he yelled, then let out a girly shriek when she turned on him, wrapping her arms around his frail neck in a choke hold. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to help Luca. He lifted his leg and kicked Onda in the stomach. She let go, but made no noise other than a soft grunt. Her silence was probably the scariest part. I ran over to Onda and grabbed her arms, pulling them behind her back and knocking her face down onto the ground. Luca retreated like a scared puppy. Onda kicked and squirmed, making it hard for me to hold her down. She twisted her body around in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable and kicked me off of her. I slammed my head into the wall and fell, a throbbing in the back of my head developing.

Onda was just about to turn around and attack again when the sound of a charger being shot off broke through the sound of the alarms blaring. Onda fell to one knee, clutching the other leg with her hands. The charger fired again, and this time just barely grazed her shoulder. Skeeter jumped down from the rafters, dropping his gun immediately and jabbing Onda in the neck with his hand. When he pulled his hand away, there was a syringe lodged in Onda’s neck, and moments after, she collapsed, falling unconscious again and the green in her tentacles starting to fade.

“Grab her, lets go,” Skeeter commanded urgently, making his way over to the door. He jammed the barrel of his gun in between the door and the doorway, using the force of his whole body to attempt prying it open. Luca jumped in to help him. I picked up Onda from the floor and hoisted her over my shoulder. When I looked back at the other two, all they’ve managed to do is bend the barrel of Skeeter’s charger.

“Use explosives,” I suggested.

“Are you crazy?!” Skeeter yelled at me. I winced.

“Prying it open won’t work, we can take shelter in the next room. If we don’t bust the door down soon we’re gonna get caught, and we’ll be in more trouble than just few scars from debris. Just blow it up.” 

Skeeter and Luca exchanged glances, then a look of defeat spread across Skeeter’s face when all he got from Luca was a shrug. He waved us to go to the next room, and we obeyed. Seconds later he joined us and helped us put a table on it’s side as shelter.

“Brace yourself,” Skeeter warned. There was multiple shrieks as the bomb went off, knocking shrapnel and various objects through the room in every direction-- I wasn’t entirely sure if I was one of the screams. Once everything in the room was settled, it was a race to get out of the building before security showed up. We ran through the hole left in the wall in a haste, pushing ourselves to sprint as fast as we could.

Eventually, we settled in a patch of uninhabited land, taking refuge next to an old, withered metal structure, it’s past life indiscernible at this point. I gently laid Onda down next to the structure, and Luca took to sitting next to her and using his own body to support her. I sat down next to the pair, then glanced up at Skeeter. He refused to sit down, pacing back and forth anxiously, pulling at his tentacles and gnawing at his lip furiously.

“You okay?” I asked tentatively. He looked back at me, and his expression looked frantic and disheveled.

“The government, the damn cursed Octarian government-- they--! They’re doing sick biochemical experiments! The-they… They’re using their prisoners--  _ our people _ \-- as their test subjects!” Skeeter went off on a tangent, struggling to get his words out. “We need to do something about this.”

“Let’s go to the surface,” Luca suggested. “Let’s tell the citizens of Inkopolis what the Octarians are doing.”

“The… surface?” I echoed softly. My heart swelled in my chest a little, excitement building up, mixed with a little bit of anxiety.

“That’ll probably be our best bet, we can’t do this alone,” Skeeter confirmed. “Alright gang, suit up, next stop: Inkopolis.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you're someone who's finding this on their own accord, feel free to follow me on instagram and twitter @glitchedfoxx ! You can feel free to DM me on either site too and I'll be more than glad to share artworks and additional stories and details about this funky little squad of cephelopods.


End file.
